Magic. This is what all travel books ought to be like: insightful, witty, informative. Again and again, Jan Morris manages to spot the tiny detail – the one that you or I probably wouldn’t have noticed - that somehow draws out the essence of a place and that makes you think “ah yes, that’s what it’s like”.. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit one or two of the places described in this marvellous book: and in every case, I recognised what she says: the smells, the taste, the texture of the place. She captures it perfectly.If you’re anything like me, you might well also be reading it because you know what Jan Morris and her sumptuous command of English can achieve. She could describe people queuing for milk and still make it sound riveting and enriching. This collection of essays is of further interest in that department too, in that it demonstrates the development of that prose style, from early beginnings in the 1950s, to full blossoming by the 1990s. In addition to the intrinsic interest and insight of what she describes then, there is also something akin to the pleasure of watching a beautiful flower unfurl. Out of hundreds of possible examples I give just two that catch my eye.Of an Ethiopian trader, measuring out millet grains: He smiled when he noticed me, the thin quiver of a smile, and as he did so he slammed the lock of his scales with a gesture terribly final, as though he had ordered the instant expulsion of the Jesuits, or had just beheaded his grandfather.Of Aussie drovers in Alice Springs: These are Australians as you have always imagined them. I do not believe stronger or more likeable men walk the earth today, so calm and imperturbable are their manners, so infectious their kindly humour, so gauntly handsome their physiques. [..] they rest there like princes among their beasts, people of an enviable fulfilment, Australians to the manner born.One of her armoury of stylistic tools in the middle years is to present the reader with lists. In other hands this might be boring. But somehow, in context, it sums up all the style and elegant swagger of her writing. Hesitantly therefore (because I’m taking it out of that context) I give an example, in this case of London: It is a city of terrific murders and innumerable spies, of novelists, auctioneers, surgeons and rock stars. It is the city of Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, Dr Johnson, Churchill, Dick Whittington, Henry VIII, Florence Nightingale, the Duke of Wellington, Queen Victoria, Gladstone and the two Olivers, Cromwell and Twist.The piece on London, which she deprecates as being a bit of a period piece, is by the way a masterpiece of travel writing. At the end she observes that much has now changed, as indeed it has. But the essence, which she captures so triumphantly, is still very much visible. It is worth buying the book just to get this essay!Inevitably there will be favourites and not-so-favourite essays, as we all like to have our own favourite places praised. But from beginning to end, her eye for the killer point, and above all, her use of language: make this book a real delight. The prose reminds me of a joint of perfectly cooked beef – rich, easy to digest, and utterly juicy. Actually, given her own beliefs I suppose that ought to be a best shoulder of Welsh lamb. But either way - not to be missed.
Classic travel writing that really captures the essence of a place. Moscow (1960s)"A fusty crowd of passengers, muffled in wrappings, hangs about the customs desk: a fat, broad-faced woman in tears, her child tugging at the strap of her handbag; a sallow man in a velvet hat, arguing over a suitcase of brocades; a covey of Chinese, dignified and double-breasted; a welter of thick-set, sweaty, colorless men with badges in their lapels and elaborate medals dangling from their chests. Among them all the traveller warily passes, a shuffling, heavy-breathing porter carrying his bags behind, and into the car that waits outside; and so down the dank, snow-muffled road, through a landscape numb with cold, he is driven towards the city. Thin flurries of snow are chased by the wind across the road..." Kashmir(1970s, on a poop boat)"The lap of the water takes over, the quacking of the ducks in the dawn, the hazed blue smoke loitering from the cook-boat, the soft water-light, the glitter of the dewdrop in the water-lily leaf, the flick of the little fish in the clear blue water, the dim purplish presence of the mountain beyond the lake, fringed with a line of distant snow. Time expands in such a setting... Scale, on the other hand, contracts. The focus narrows, within the frame of the Kashmir water-life. The picture gets clearer, more exact, and one finds oneself concentrating upon the minutiae, like the number of leaves upon the plucked waterweed, or the twitchy movements of the kingfishers..." Darjeeling (1970s)"Yet it is not the spectacle of the Himalayas that sets the style of Darjeeling. It is simply their presence. The town lives in the knowledge of them, and so acknowledges another scale of things. Its littleness is not inferiority complex, but self-awareness, and it gives the community a particular intensity and vivacity. Darjeeling is built in layers, neatly along its ridge like an exhibition town, from the posh hotels and villas at the top to the jumbled bazaar quarter at the bottom: and all the way down this dense tiered mass of buildings life incessantly buzzes, hums and fizzes. Darjeeling's energies seem to burn the brighter for their smallness, and not a corner of the town is still, or empty, or dull."
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